A new guide to French Quarter bars could be the drinking buddy you’ve always wanted.

Just like an ideal barfly friend, “The French Quarter Drinking Companion” is full of fun stories.

From witnessing the triumphant shouts of a happy old man at the Krazy Korner to struggling to view a wrestling match at Café Lafitte in Exile, to spending a blurry evening bonding at Cosimo’s Bar, the authors recount their personal experiences at 100 watering holes to create a vibrant, story-based picture of the French Quarter.

“Each bar is part of a mosaic,” said Elizabeth Pearce, who authored the book with Allison Alsup and Richard Read. “If you step back, you can see the whole picture of this neighborhood. Each story stands on its own, but it’s also part of the collection.”

The book includes the basics expected of a guidebook—drink recommendations, price ranges, types of music, types of crowd, best features—but the authors present even that information in a quirky, quick-witted style.

Your drinking buddies at The Three Legged Dog are described as “the brave and the reckless.” At Old Absinthe House, it’s “anyone who stumbles in from Bourbon Street, or trots.” Tattoo themes are included among basics for each spot: sailors and pinups at Flanagan’s, “understated” at Sylvain, and “varied and abundant” at Rawhide.

The book, released this fall by Gretna-based Pelican Publishing Company, includes more than 250 pages of photos and anecdotes.

“People have really dug it,” Pearce said.

The three authors each hold several jobs. Pearce writes a cocktail blog and leads local cocktail tours. Alsup works as a writer, teacher, and designer. Read, who has written for Fodor’s and Gawker, among other media outlets, also works as a grant-writer and marketer.

The trio grew up in different places—Pearce in Covington, Alsup in San Francisco, and Read in Mississippi—but have lived in New Orleans for years, a mix that Pearce cites as a benefit.

“We didn’t just move here from Brooklyn last year, but we’re not so local that we can’t see things that make New Orleans special and different from other places,” she said.

The hip writing style and smart anecdotes aren’t the only unique aspects of the book, according to Pearce.

“There is no other guide to the bars of the Quarter,” she said, a statement that a quick Internet search reveals could be true.

Other guides may include bars among restaurants or general attractions of the French Quarter, but do not focus solely on the neighborhood’s bars despite its unique and ubiquitous drinking culture.

"The French Quarter Drinking Companion" aims to capture this idea of drinking as a defining part of the French Quarter’s eclectic character, Pearce said.

“The drinking is the constant,” she said, describing how companions, conversation topics, music, and ambience may change during the course of a night wandering the Quarter, but the drinking continues. “It’s a walking neighborhood. You take your drink with you. The drinking is part of the journey.”

A surprising part of that journey for the authors? “We had a really good time on Bourbon Street,” Pearce said.

The trio kept putting off the inevitable trip to Bourbon for reasons that locals typically avoid the famed street, but Pearce said she gained an appreciation for the infectious spirit of revelry there.

“Bourbon Street serves a really important purpose in America as this place you can go without censure,” she said, adding that even Las Vegas doesn’t measure up in this regard. “Everything in Vegas has been artificially created. But the French Quarter is real. Everything about it is solid and grounded in history and story.”

Pearce said she hopes locals buy the book partly for entertainment value but also for use as an actual guide for exploring different French Quarter bars.

“We believe that every bar in this book is worth visiting at least once,” she said, “that there’s some New Orleanian-ness, some quality that makes it worth a visit even if it’s not your kind of bar and you never go back.

“The French Quarter Drinking Companion: A guide to bars in America’s most eclectic neighborhood” is available in New Orleans area bookstores, both chain and independent, and online at Pelican Publishing and Amazon.com. Authors also plan to sell the book at local holiday markets.